Originally Posted by
robabeatle
Sort of: a while back I put on a different stem that left the steering tube a bit lower than ideal. (The previous stem was slammed and the steering tube cut for that application.) So that may have added some stress. The LBS commented that the steering tube was a bit short for this stem. Also, I went down on the hammer ride last Saturday. It was a relatively benign fall as I had time to react to the bunch in front that went down. I veered off the road and fell in some dirt. I didn't think it was a big deal, but I did notice creaking after that incident, which turned out to be the steering tube issue.
Yup. There's your problem.
I get that everyone wants to give their bike a briss but being around these things for so long it is almost always a bad idea. Things change and having some adjustability is always beneficial. Heck even most stems don't have the same stack height so cutting them super slammed leaves one with few if any options if their current stem cracks or they want to change setups.
Running a stem on a fork cut too low for it will place an immense amount of stress on the fork steerer. Crashing on it - even if a mild crash - can very easily result in a one way trip to crackville.
ENVE makes great forks. There are also a lot of other forks out there that are great as well.